Go For Broke, Start From Scratch
by Tsume Yuki
Summary: Gellert Grindelwald knew the only way out of his self made prison was over his own dead body. So that's what he did. Voldemort wasn't the only one to play about with immortality after all. A dark fic, with reborn Gellert and a FemHarry


**Go For Broke, Start From Scratch**

_**Prologue  
**__31__st__ October 1990_

x

With her soft blonde hair and kind attitude, Ashley Ward was a major hit at the orphanage she spent most of her time working at. She was adored by all the children, and she loved them all in return. Since she was the tender age of eighteen she'd been working the same shift, turning up to help out with the younger children and sometimes running unpaid hours just to see the joy that settled upon the children's' faces when she stayed that little bit longer.

It was during her second year working at the orphanage that they got another new resident.

It was the day before Halloween, 1980, when she'd opened the door to the orphanage to head home, only to find a small basket upon the front step. Inside had been a golden haired newborn, with bright blue eyes that'd stared up at her in wonderment. Ashley had loved that little boy from the moment her eyes had landed upon him.

The little boy who'd come with nothing more than a blanket and a small card holding nothing but a name. What a strange one it had been. Gellert.

That was it.

No surname was present, nor any contact details.

It'd taken Ashley a bit of time to look around for any hint towards where the darling little boy had come from, but all that came up was the name's origin. It was a Hungarian name, a very odd choice considering the boy was born in England, mere hours old when he'd been left upon the doorstep of Jameson's Orphanage.

Regardless, Ashley grew to love the boy, she knew from the moment she saw him that he was going to be special. And indeed, Gellert Odell, named after the last person to generously donate to their orphanage, grew up to be very special indeed.

He was a handsome child, with a merry-wild tilt to his impish lips, a constant sparkle of triumphant trickery to his eyes. His golden locks fell in a series of half curls, which always looked somewhat frosty, even in summer.

And he was so smart. The smartest child that Ashley had ever seen, inside and outside of the orphanage. He was reading books she'd struggle to understand, almost as if he'd been doing so for years. There was his speech too, the boy spoke like a miniature politician. He was just a perfect little darling.

Which only made it that much stranger when all of the potential parents seemed to pass right over him. Every time she tried to bring the boy up, to voice his success and intelligence, the couple would give her a blank look, as if what she said meant nothing to them. Even stranger still was when Gellert himself said nothing more, instead just rocking back and forth on his heels and watching the hopeful couples walk around the orphanage with an odd little smile upon his lips. Like he found the whole process amusing.

Maybe a tiny part of her was thankful the boy never got looked at by the potential parents. Gellert was her favourite after all. She went out of her way to bring him new books from the library, to supply him with sweets and basically jump through whatever hoop he may want her to.

It wasn't until a day after the boy's eleventh birthday that things changed, because she forgot all about the golden haired boy she'd helped to raise from a newborn baby to the stand out boy he was today. The light-hearted boy had stood before her, a teasing smile upon his lips as he pocketed one hand.

"Ashley, you have my sincerest thanks. You're not that bad for a muggle. Unfortunately, it is time I move on to bigger and better things. It'd be for the best if you forgot all about me."

She'd wanted to argue, to cry that she didn't want to forget about the gorgeous little boy who'd captured her heart. And then there was no more.

Only a longing ache in her heart and no memories to suggest why it was there.

* * *

Shutting the door behind him, Gellert Grindelwald stretched his arms above his head, twisting his body about in the late autumn sun.

It'd been eleven years and a single day since he'd died. Well, that was putting it somewhat lightly. He'd come to the realization that he wasn't quite as patient as he'd thought himself to be, and that sitting in a cell waiting for death was not that high on his list of priorities.

So he'd allowed his magic to stop defending his withering body, to let disease take a firm hold and drag him from life.

Only, thanks to that tricky little ritual he'd preformed way back in his twenties, he'd been reborn in a new body, an infant body not a day after his death. The magic of the ritual had been potent, forcing a strong compulsion upon whatever woman had birthed him, so that he may get dropped off in the nearest orphanage. Giving him far more manoeuvrability as his magic sorted through his new body, changing the DNA within till it was an exact copy of his previous one, only at a much younger age.

He'd been a little bemused by the caretaker Ashley, whom had become quite charmed with the smart, childish persona he'd put forwards. In the orphanage he'd had much better time to plan, to play about with how he wanted this second chance at life to go. Instead of having parents looking over his shoulder, he'd been free to move about with little to no eyes watching him, writing up and working out all his future plans in German, which none of the idiots around him knew how to speak, let alone read.

And now that he was eleven, old enough to return to the magical world without it looking suspicious, he was going to do so. Though not before he'd cast a mass obliviate -one of three spells he could currently do wandless- on every single person within Jameson's Orphanage.

As his body was now his own, a blood test at the goblins would be the first thing on his to-do list. His original mother, being English born and one of the last of the Shafiq line, had left his a grand opportunity to claim whatever lay in the vault. So that was his wizarding last name sorted out. And while it may set off warning bells in Albus' mind -if the man was still alive that was- he'd never guess the truth. When Gellert had found that ritual, he'd burnt all the evidence. Didn't need anyone copying him after all.

With a plan now, to collect funds first and then learn about all the history he'd missed locked away in his own prison as he had been, Gellert Grindelwald apperated away.

* * *

**I really wanted to just write some Grindelwald and I got this idea and it wouldn't got away. Before anyone else asks on the status of my other Harry Potter stories, just get my profile. It has all the information there. **

**So, this is going to be a FemHarryxGellert, and they're both going to be dark. I'm toying with the idea of a three way war between Voldemort v Dumbledore v Gellert and Harry. Not sure what'll happen yet though.**

**These chapters will hopefully be around 5,000 to 10,000 words though.**

**.**

**Thoughts? feelings? **

**Tsume  
xxx**


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